Archive for the ‘Road Course B’ Category

This weeks Pro race was quite memorable (for good and bad reasons). It was my first race on the road track at Homestead and for a roval it’s not too bad. I decided that it would be worth qualifying but in the end it wasn’t really needed as I started 16th of 18, and was the last of the drivers who set a qualifying time (so I would have started 16th even with no quali time).

The race itself was pretty eventful. There was a lap 1 pileup where I was lucky to drive away with just a 1x incident hit and a slightly wonky wheel. It did mean that I was able to pickup a few positions and so I spent the first portion of the race in 13th/14th position, somewhere in a pack of cars.

Passing is quite hard at Homestead, as you have a one lane hairpin just before the oval section (so the cars are always spread out a certain amount as they navigate the turn in single file) and even after a long period of drafting the route to turn 1 is very tricky to drive whilst also battling another driver. Most of my position gains were the product of other drivers making mistakes and gifting me positions.

After some more lucky passes I found myself in 10th position with just 9 laps to go – but I was locked into a fierce battle with another driver and we both seemed to be getting more and more wild as the laps ticked over. Unfortunately on lap 42 the inevitable happened; after a lengthy period of drafting we entered the turn 1 kink side by side and I hit a bump in the road (a bump that I hadn’t felt before as I was now off my ideal racing line) and this pitched the car into a ‘tankslapper’. I was luckily able to reign it back under control and slow the car down, but I ran out of road and the car spun out into the grass.

I rejoined the track and was able to finish 13th, for 74 points (not too bad considering).

I made a short highlights reel of the race and the memorable moments:-